How long will we keep our internet useage lead?

[Silverhair]

Discover magazine, Jan 2004 issue, page 22, is an article about the effect of the internet on democracy and about Dean's use of it. MoveOn is mentioned too. Quite an informative article.

But the right isn't stupid, altough many here would like to think so. How long will it take for them to catch up? How effective will they be?

I think it is a great development if both sides make heavy use of the internet. It gives us little guys some real input, and I can see (Hopefully) a future that keeps new ideas bubbling in the stew.

But then, I am a long range optimist, although a short range pessimist.

[LoZoccolo]

1. I actually think they beat us to it.

Free Republic was up years before DU, for one. But I think they really won't have as much of a web presence as much as, say, email lists.

Here's why: a lot of right-wing propaganda is really weird, especially far right-wing. I'm talking about the paranoid conspiracy theory type of stuff, and the racist stuff, the kind of stuff that keeps the working class voting for politicians that implement policies that ultimately hurt them. I think this stuff influences people more that we'd be able to find out because people believe it enough to act on what they read in it, but not enough for them to face embarassment by admitting that they do. So a lot of this stuff remains under the radar. As such, they wouldn't want to put it anywhere where a broad swath of people would be likely to see it and get freaked out that a segment of the right wing believes it.

However, twice already this girl I used to work with will sent me some right-wing pass-around email (and twice I've seen at least part of it debunked on snopes.com), maybe thinking I'd agree with it.

I guess the short of it is that because some of the reasons that people support right-wing policies are publicly embarassing, they'd want to use the more private side of the internet to distribute their propaganda.

[Silverhair]

2. But they sure aren't using it as effectively as

DU or MoveOn. Even something as simple as a thread tree, so you can see how a discussion is organized, and who is talking to who make following the thought easier.

[LoZoccolo]

3. Agreed...they should at /least/ have a thread tree by now!

Ha that's funny! I don't go on there too often, but yeah, when I do, you have to work a little sometimes to understand what's going on. You'd think that even if they didn't think of the idea of organizing the posts themselves, they'd at least have copied it from here sometime after DU started.